The antimicrobial agent destroys the cell wall of bacteria molecules.Click here to enlarge imageAs part of a stormwater management improvement project, more than 275 storm drains in the US city of Norwalk, Connecticut, have been fitted with high-technology filtration systems equipped with Smart Sponge Plus. According to initial field tests, the project’s filters destroyed a high percentage of bacteria, including E. coli and other fecal coliform. The average removal rate was over 75 percent and the maximum removal rate was 99.9 percent. In addition, the first cleaning of the 275 catch basins yielded over 7.4 tons of trash, debris, leaves, sediment, and sand (including needles and syringes), preventing it from entering the Sound’s recreational waters.
The Arizona-based company AbTech Industries produces the filtration systems - Ultra Urban® Filters with Smart Sponge Plus - and holds the technology’s patent. Norwalk is using the antimicrobial Smart Sponge® Plus4 in the high volume stormwater catch basins selected for this project.
Rodolfo Manzone, Ph.D., the company’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, explained how the product destroys bacteria without using toxic chemicals that would create additional environmental problems: “The Smart Sponge Plus employs an antimicrobial agent, chemically bound to the polymer filtration material, which inactivates health-threatening microorganisms. The mechanism is based on the agent’s electromagnetic interaction with the microorganism cell membrane, causing the microorganism disruption, but no chemical or physical change in the agent. Consequently, the antimicrobial agent is not depleted over time and it maintains its long-term effectiveness.”
Manzone said that AbTech Industries’ antimicrobial technology has definite possibilities beyond stormwater applications. “As a result of the continuing validation we’re receiving from field tests, we are looking at other applications, including the wastewater area, where the Smart Sponge Plus’s unique mechanism of action could offer distinctive advantages. Over the next 12 months, we expect to find suitable partners to enter into this new and exciting phase.”